In memories shrouded by cigarette smoke, on hazy nights lost in the incessant hums of the air conditioner where my mind's eye can barely see the line between being awake and being asleep, I feel your warmth on my cheek, the beating of your heart, and how your chest rises and falls with every breath. You, are very real. Yet when it comes to knowing you, only fleeting instances of the coffee you ordered, that doughnut we shared, barely make up who you are.
Two bodies sharing the same bed. Nothing more. The TV glows late into the night and your eyes, streaked with red, are fixed onto moving pictures. Your rough hand cups my shoulder but do you feel it? Impenetrable as you are, as tight as these thin lips stay.
Somewhere in the dim light, there is a sound of a click. A fire flickers. I hear the Marlboro seep deep into your lungs, as though you want to dye your soul in its minty fumes just as well. Every bud that burns through, who are they burnt for? I pretend to be asleep, listening for answers in the smoke you exhale.
We are connected but shut off from each other's world. In modern terms: the Wi-Fi that connects to a device but fails to grant access to the internet. Yes, that is exactly how we are. I shouldn't let it bother me but I get stuck on the possibility that you might be thinking about it as well-- if you are indeed, like me.
And perhaps because you are like me, we can never open up. Beyond the clandestine curtains of our meetings, there is a lover that cannot be abandoned. Still, we seek that pleasure again and again, lost and frustrated, taking the blame out on the reflection of our misery. It doesn't matter if we like each other or not, because we feel the weight of our fault as we rest against the other.
I think, on this Spring morning where dark clouds loom and the winds of Biwako cast its timely wrath against the branches of trees still in winter slumber, I have come to accept our meaningless connection. We are but drifting souls caught up in each other's thread for the time being. Once my time here is up, so shall we slip past our memories and the sensations of a dream so real, never to materialize again.
